SF News Day Around the Bay: Mahmoud Khalil to Be Released After Months in Immigration Custody Pope Leo XIV urged Silicon Valley execs to prioritize human wellbeing in their technology; a San Rafael City Schools board trustee was suspended following his arrest for child molestation; and former Columbia student and legal resident Mahmoud Khalil is set to be released Friday evening.
SF News Day Around the Bay: Waymo Inches Into a Couple More Peninsula Cities (But Still Can’t Go to SFO) The “People’s March” is returning for 2025 but not at the same time as the Pride Parade; a prisoner who escaped from FCI Dublin in 1994 was finally arrested; and Waymo is now operating in six more cities along the Peninsula.
Business & Tech Waymo Suspends Service In Parts of SF and LA After Its Cars Were Vandalized In ICE Protests Waymo is suspending service Monday in parts of San Francisco and Los Angeles following acts of vandalism on Sunday that targeted the robocars in both cities, amid raucous protests against ICE activities and the Trump administration.
Business & Tech It’s Not Your Imagination, Your Waymo May Be Driving More Like a Human The behavior of Waymo’s self-driving taxis has apparently shifted in recent weeks or months, based on safety data collected by the company, and it means the cars are doing certain things more like real people do behind the wheel.
Business & Tech You Might Be Able to Buy and Own Your Own Self-Driving Waymo Someday If you’ve ever wanted to own your own self-driving Waymo vehicle, and are willing to shell out a great deal of money for it, parent company Google/Alphabet says it may eventually start selling those vehicles to the public.
Business & Tech Be Wary of Putting Stuff In the Trunk of a Waymo — Sometimes They Drive Off There have been a few stories about Waymos driving off with people's luggage still in the trunk, and now a San Francisco tennis instructor has filed a lawsuit over some lost tennis equipment.
Business & Tech Waymo Eyeing Expansion Into San Jose, and Also Much of the South Bay You might soon be able to take a Waymo all the way from SF to San Jose, as the self-driving robotaxis are apparently already halfway through their bureaucratic quest to win approval to operate in San Jose, plus much of Santa Clara County.
SF News Lurie Announces Market Street to Open Up to Waymos The car-free stretch of Market Street east of 10th is going to be somewhat less car-free this summer when it starts getting clogged up with confused Waymos.
SF News Day Around the Bay: Waymo Service to SFO Likely Coming Soon Waymo has reached a deal to start mapping its routes to SFO; the SFMTA is thinking about putting pickleball courts on top of underutilized city-owned garages; and a midwife and her associate have been arrested in Texas for providing abortions.
SF News Day Around The Bay: Pinole Teen Caught With Loaded Gun At School A Pinole high school student was reportedly caught with a loaded gun at school and then fled police; Bay Area health officials urge residents to get the measles vaccine if they haven't already; and State Farm has been given the go-ahead to increase California customers' rates.
Business & Tech Waymo Just Expanded Service to Offer Rides In Silicon Valley, the Company's Birthplace The newest places you can catch Waymo robo-rides are the Silicon Valley cities of Los Altos, Palo Alto, and Mountain View, which makes sense, as Waymo was born in Mountain View.
SF News Saturday Links: CDC Publishes, Then Promptly Deletes, Update On Bird Flu Transmission Between Cats And Humans Iconic programmer and hacktivist Aaron Swartz has been honored with a marble bust; schools in at least ten states have closed due to flu surge; and tons of thousands of food is going to waste in Houston due to the USAID pause.
Business & Tech Latest Robotaxi Criticism Claims They’re Blocking SF Housing Development Here’s a complaint we hadn't considered about Waymos and self-driving cars, as at least 600 units of proposed housing are not getting built, because the property owners are getting quicker and easier money by renting out the lots as vehicle charging stations.
SF News One Killed, Seven Injured In Multi-Vehicle SoMa Crash; Tesla Driver Detained, Linked Also to Freeway Crash A violent collision Sunday evening on Sixth Street between Bryant and Harrison streets involved seven cars, and left one person and a dog dead. The suspect vehicle that may have caused the crash is also linked to a hit-and-run incident minutes earlier on I-280.
SF News Two Stalled Waymos Gummed Up Lurie’s Chinatown Inauguration Party, But Cops Just Jumped In Them and Drove Away Police can apparently now hop into stalled, confused Waymo robotaxis and drive them away manually, and this reportedly happened twice Wednesday night at Mayor Daniel Lurie’s inauguration party.
Business & Tech Waymo Passenger Says He Was Late to the Airport Because Robocar Kept Doing Circles In a Parking Lot This week in robocar snafus: A Waymo in Phoenix went a little haywire recently, and its passenger says he was late getting to a flight because the car refused to stop circling the same parking lot.
Business & Tech Turns Out Blind People Really Love Taking Trips in Waymo’s Self-Driving Robotaxis Here’s one demographic that does not loathe the robot cars driving around San Francisco, as blind people have rave reviews for Waymo’s dedicated features to accommodate people with visual impairments.
SF News Day Around the Bay: Waymo Hasn't Had to Physically Eject Any Passed-Out Passengers... Yet People have passed out in the back of Waymos, but so far they've woken up; the city of Oakland hasn't collected over $1M in fines issued for illegal dumping; and it's going to be very chilly around the Bay Tuesday morning.
Business & Tech Waymo Takes Another Step Toward Entering Airport Taxi Market Waymo could have one of its biggest fights to date on its hands as it pushes toward providing rides between San Francisco and SFO — but a permit process is underway to allow the company to begin mapping the airport for that purpose.
SF Politics SF’s Prop L Hopes to Save Muni With a Tax on Uber, Lyft, and Waymo Rides With the SFMTA looking at a $214 million deficit and potential service cuts, a ragtag band of riders came up with Prop L, which would tax Lyft, Uber, and Waymo rides to effectively bail out Muni.
Business & Tech Tech Bros Try to Help Waymo Entangled With Muni Bus, Leave Behind Stalled Waymo A new viral video shows a stalled Waymo getting entangled with a Muni bus this weekend, and when a gaggle of tech bros coming from an industry party try to help, they seem to just make things worse.
Business & Tech Woman In Driverless Waymo Harassed By Bros Wanting Her Phone Number It’s the second incident in two weeks where misbehaving pedestrians effectively held someone hostage in an SF Waymo, as two bros stood in front of the self-driving car and persistently demanded the phone number of the woman riding it.
Business & Tech Of Course a Waymo Got In the Way of Kamala Harris's Motorcade on Nob Hill Friday Night You can't even get a (vice) presidential motorcade through the streets of San Francisco these days without tripping over a self-driving taxi.
SF News Waymo Gets Tagged With Rider (and Little Dog) Still Inside in Mission District The latest SF anti-self-driving car shenanigans were captured on a now-viral video where a team of taggers gangs up on a Waymo and tags the bejesus out of the vehicle, while a passenger and a little dog are stuck nervously inside.
Business & Tech Cruise Comes Crawling Back, Re-Launching Driverless Cars, With Drivers, On Peninsula Autonomous taxi company Cruise is slowly trying to reintroduce its robocars in the Bay Area, one year after the company went into freefall following a brutal collision in which one of the cars dragged an injured pedestrian.